September 7, 2006

Are we not? All the signs are there. The media have latched onto the conspiracy folk. Hey, it's a new angle, and it's edgy and cool. And no one still feels that bad about it after five years, do they? Surely, we can have a little fun with it this year. It's an election year. The politicos have got to exploit what they can get away with exploiting, and you're callused enough by now not to complain, at least not in proportion to the advantage they can wring out of it. ABC made a docudrama, and that couldn't be received as a solemn reminder of the events of five years ago. It's got to be a playing field for the forces of right and left, and now if you watch the thing, instead of thinking about America and al Qaeda, you can think about Democrats and Republicans. If you haven't caught up with the spirit of 2006, you might want to keep the TV off for the next few days and stay away from the internet.

110 comments:

I'll probably just silently remember the families and friends of victims during the day on 9/11 -- was thinking of going to church and praying for the families of the victims, but suddenly my weekend is booked. (sigh). I'll happily miss the (cough) entertainment on TV, as I don't watch TV.

It's not all bad on the Net. I signed up with "2,996: A Tribute to the Victims of 9/11" to be one of the bloggers paying tribute to one of the victims of 9/11. The goal is to be apolitical, focus on the life of the individual. It's a difficult challenge, I'm discovering, although easy enough to keep the individual politicians and parties out of the picture. It remains to be seen how well the bloggers can do this...

Have you actually seen the docudrama? I have not, but what I hear from those who have is that, in the end, the viewer is reminded, and left with a very clear sense of, who our real enemy is. I recommend everyone watch it and put politics aside.

Agreed and perhaps somewhere on the net one could find a bit of speculation and polite gossip over the state of health of Justice Kennedy, given his age and the recent insertion of a stint. Everyone of course asserts it is no big deal, despite very faint and vague rumors that the next episode of the Justice Hunt has already commenced with our pal Karl directing.

Rumsfeld gave a speech in which he named no names giving his view of the situation. The dems screeched that he was attacking them. Are they appeasers? If the shoe fits wear it and explain your position.

Bush gives speeches...ditto and the MSM mischaracterizes.

America is trying to forget about 9/11...maybe ABC's docudrama will help stop the drift.

If the ABC "docudrama," whatever that fuzzy term means, presents fictional situations that clearly are intended to tar political enemies, then no one's under any obligatin to just watch it and put politics aside. Vile propaganda should be rejected firmly, by any political side. If this is like Oliver Stone's take in "JFK," then I'm concerned. Stone's protests that he'd just "dramatized" events and didn't intend his film to be taken as a historical is weak; presenting a drama that distorts the events of 9/11 on the anniversary of the attacks is base and deserving of contempt.

I watched very little of the slew of Katrina commemorations, and I plan to approach this the same way. I don't expect our media/entertainment complex to get it right.

I don't think we have to worry. Most Americans take terrorism seriously - Democratic and media antics only serve to discredit themselves.

No matter how the talking heads/politicos spin it, most Americans will remember the exact moment they heard about the twin towers, what they were doing, which way their heads were turned, what image was in front of their eyes, and what they felt then.

No amount of docudrama (is that a self-contradictory word?) will erase that memory, try as the media might.

The only way to eliminate politics from 9/11 would require complementing President Bush's aggressive tactics. Bush Derangement Syndrome has made that impossible, so as we enter another election cycle, moonbat liberals will hand Republicans the GWOT on a silver platter.

I remember in the 90's Jamie Rubin as a State Department spokesman telling CNN that they didn't want to bring notoriety to OBL by putting him on the most wanted list. I thought at the time, I'm no middle east expert, perhaps they are right. I guess OBL was fully capable of doing it himself. Today's Democrats that complain about "recruiting" additional terrorists by our policies, are really going back to the pre-9/11 Jamie Rubin world.

I agree with Elizabeth about the MSM/Entertainment and its ability to tell the story right. I made my peace with 9/11 several years ago and although this year seems to have opened up the subject moreso than previously, I am not that interested in the recreations.

I remember how I felt and I have a pretty good idea what happened and why. The present situation has plenty for me to deal with.

As with everything relating to our current global mess, the comments above reflect our deep and bitter divisions, most of which have been toxicly bubbling for a generation or more.

After the psychologically shattering events of September 11, 2001, I thought our country would come together. So many of us seem to be still crawling in the dark rubble, picking up shards, trying to piece them together, and then fighting over the scraps we've each greedily amassed.

We clearly seem to still be in the first scene of the first act of a five-act play.

So the media is now going to mainstream the 9-11 conspiracy nutjobs. I suppose Holocaust denial is next, as they are functionally equivalent. The insidious thing about these conspiracy theories is that every fact you raise to refute them is then incorporated into the theory - you just cannot argue with these people.You don't need a hatchet job docudrama to discredit Clinton, just the historical facts will do - the string of terror attacks against us during his administration, and his ineffectual (dare I say impotent?) response, which led more or less directly to 9-11. It's all on the record.

Michael Moore "Fahreheit 9/11" receives kudos from the Left/Congresspersons and Michael Moore is an honored guest at the Democrat National Convention. And now the leftist commenters here (you know who you are) are whining.

I am always amused by those who say they don't watch but offer exceptions like Golf on CBS or the History Channel.

As to myself, I can't wait to watch the Notre Dame/ Penn State game on Saturday afternoon and I am very curious about ABC's 911 show. I hope it gives me some facts so I can form a better opinion about how our govt did or did not its job.

Lastly, does anyone know if Clinton has seen the show? I see he is complaining about the show but it is not clear if he got a copy- the lefty blogs are saying he did not- and I find that doubtful and wrong if true.

Doyle,Your objections have nothing to do with the portrayal of the Clinton Administration, it is how much that policy pre-9/11 has become today's Democrat policy post 9/11. The Bush Administration's pre-9/11 policy has a critical narrative in this mini-series too. The public knows Bush changed course and Democrats haven't.

Elizabeth: thank you for stating the obvious: the "entertainment-MSM comples" just isnt going to get anything right. 9/11 happened; if anyone thinks that the anyone could have prevented it, they are smoking some bad stuff--When bad people are committed to doing harm, it can be done, and rather easily in a free society.

Rather than blaming Clinton and Bush, why dont we focus on the situation and determine how we can fight a war against implacable enemies, while still maintaining the requisite degree of civil liberties at home. These are significant issues worthy of statesperson-like debates. And that does not appear to be even possible in the morass that is Washington DC politics right now.

RogerA, yes it is possible that 9/11 could have been prevented. The premise of your statement is false...else the recent plot in the UK could not have been stopped. It seems a miracle that we have not been attacked again. But it is clearly not because AQ has renounced its stated goals.

To some extent, I agree with George's assertion that, in terms of the GWOT, "We clearly seem to still be in the first scene of the first act of a five-act play," although I would place us at the start of Act 2, and I lack his sense of surprise. If, as I think almost everyone agrees, the war on terrorism will be a very long, involved process, I'm at a loss to know why anyone would expect us to be past Act 2. To think otherwise is to succumb to the same disease that led HDHouse to recently object to the statement that critics of Iraq want instant gratification by pointing out that it has been three years. Yes, it has been three years, and when put in the context of the enomidity of the task, expecting it to be done in three years IS to expect instant gratification. Three years IS, for all practical purposes, an instant in the business at hand. This is not going to be over by the midterms, it will not be over when the 44th President is inaugurated, and there's a pretty good chance that whoever the 44th President is, the 45th President will still have the GWOT as their number one issue. When fighting a hydra, don't chop off one head, declare victory and head home.

Is your theory that the government has stopped looking, or that the staff of people responsible for looking - most of whom are career officers and NOT Bush administration appointments - are incompetent?

I would assume that the answer to how bin Laden remains at large is that it's very difficult to find a man in northern Pakistan who doesn't want to be found. If you think it's so easy, YOU do it.

1. who is on our side and who isn't?2. why do we have 135,000 troops in Iraq keeping them from killing each other?3. why is afghanistan such a mess...resurgent Taliban and the major cash generator is opium?4. ohhhh and in case you don't get it, the only terrorist attack in the US in the last 6 years was under Bush's watch...and you can't blame that on clinton...Bush was in charge....or do you have an alternative theory, like "well he wasn't really president for very long?"..something like that? Well tell me, what day did bush take over as president officially...

my pet goat be damned. you had all you needed to know when that fool of fools sat there like a befuddled frat boy wondering if he should pee or keep reading.

Simon said... To some extent, I agree with George's assertion that, in terms of the GWOT, "We clearly seem to still be in the first scene of the first act of a five-act play," To think otherwise is to succumb to the same disease that led HDHouse to recently object to the statement that critics of Iraq want instant gratification by pointing out that it has been three years.

Now that is rich. In the run up to Act I, Scene I "Bush finds Iraq on a map!" do I remember correctly that

1. this war will cost us nothing2. we will be greated has liberators3. we will be home by Christmas...

ohhhhhhhh that's right...they left out the year...

A "war powers" president given expanded powers due to an endless war. Well my little neo-con friends, then why don't you declare war...? Why not? What is stopping you. If this is such a hot idea, then declare war.

Putz comes to mind but it is far to kind a descriptor for such idiocy.

2) Arab culture is conducive to despotism, creating chaos encourages loyalty to tribes. Preventing all out escalation allows time to for reconciliation to occur.

3) Afghanistan was a mess long before we got there. I didn't know that the Taliban had complete control before we aided the Northern Alliance.

4) Yes, 9/11 happened during the Bush Administration, since 9-12-2001 Democrats have tried to make it exclusively a Bush failure. The series clearly shows US policy didn't change from the previous Administration. Post 9/11 US policy has changed. Why do Democrats like yourself want to go back to the old policy that in the long run will ultimately involve WMD. This series will show us the face of the enemy and how dangerous they are. The public will have to decide new aggressive or back to the old way.

gpe beat me to the plug for DC Roe's project. It will be interesting to see how bloggers write about people they've never met. It's been an enlightening project for me.

Is hdhouse a reincarnation of quxxo?

Interesting how he cut off the time limit at 2000 rather than include the USS Cole or the first attempt at the WTC.

As for doyle and OBL - please don't forget the two times Clinton passed on taking bin Laden out. He could have been removed pre 9/11. Would that have stopped it? Depends on how far before but probably not. Besides - with friends one can hide for a long time...

ohhhh and in case you don't get it, the only terrorist attack in the US in the last 6 years was under Bush's watch...and you can't blame that on clinton...Bush was in charge....

Wow, that's amazing! I am shocked - shocked, I tell you! - that any terror attacks that occurred in the past six years have been during Bush's presidency!

What, did those terrorist attacks that happened under Clinton now never happen? Just disappeared down the memory hole? And all of Clinton's foreign policy had no effect whatsoever? Seriously, what is this point intended to argue?

It's not my intent to be ghoulish, but something was brought home to me the other week.

I was cruising around YouTube looking for 9/11 videos and stumbled across one that now only showed sustained shots of the jumpers and their falls, but included a long shot of bodies on the plaza below. NOT anyone hitting the ground, just the bodies. It was truly horrifying to see.

And then I realised that I've seen plenty of blood and mangled bodies on the evening news -- usually from the Middle East and often of Palestinians, and Lebanese of late -- but I have NEVER seen the horrifying ends of the lives extinguished on 9/11. No bodies or parts or blood-smeared sidewalks. None.

Why the desire to shock on one hand and a very ginger fear of shock on the other? THAT double standard of the major news sources is what truly bothers me and is why I avoid the mainstream news today.

Yes, Clinton did little about bin Laden following four separate terrorists attacks, but I don't seem to remember the GOP being terribly interested in the gathering threat of al Qaeda in 1998. Do you? Nor do I recall a groundswell of opinion from middle America, the press, academia or anywhere else urging us to quit pretending that history had ended. I didn't see Republicans or Democrats doing much of anything about terrorism when Bush took office either. Instead we spent the summer before 9/11 watching a food fight between the President and a Senator from a state most American schoolchildren can't find on a map. And now, while a very few politicians seem more attuned to the threat we face, most seem to have learned nothing from 9/11 and continue to view it only in the coldest calculus of electoral advantage and character assasination.

Ultimately none of this will stop until the voters vote not for a particular party, but for a particular commitment to fight and defeat terrorists on every front. In Iraq, for instance, one can convincingly argue that it did more harm than good to invade, but who can convincingly argue that ceding Iraq to al Qaeda will make us safer? Likewise, serious and sober people understand that civilization is not secured by barbarism, but also realizes that the moral vanity will not defend us from the utter depravity of our foes. Reasonable people want to avoid Iran if any way possible, but also will cede that a nuclear Iran must be stopped at all costs.

So, please, those few of us who are still sane, let's save the animosity for those who wish to kill us no matter how we vote.

Well I had my witty and erudite comment ready then I saw two previously posted comments and realised that witty and erudiote is wasted on Americans of the rabid right tendency."Most Americans take terrorism seriously" THAT is the problem. As long as you take terrorists seriously they will always win. Mock them, ridicule them and don't miss a step in your daily march through life.The kind of hysteria that has reigned since 9/11 is just the exact effect terrorists want to create.The other comment on the war on terror went "on one side is a freedom loving democracy..." or something close. You know, while Americans want tyo impose the American way on the rest of the world neither Arabs, African, South Americans nor Europeans are ever going to see America the way it sees itself. As a Dutch politician said a few years ago "if America is as great as they keep telling us, why is everybody so unhappy?"

Remember 9/11 with quiet dignity, pass on the outpouring of phoney emotions and if anybody tries to use the anniversary to make political capital DON'T VOTE FOR THEM! Sorted!

I'm afraid the answer is all too simple as to why bloody pictures on one side and not the other.

We're too decent. Rather than risk "inflaming passions" here at home by showing the remains of a person that fell 100+ stories to pavement below we were besieged with worries about how this might make us intolerant.

Beyond that, we need a "Mr. Green Helmet" (if you don't know the reference then read up on all the Lebanon-related fauxtography and stuff) to helpfully hold up the bodies to all the press ghouls.

Phony? Can you watch footage of the towers burning without your chest tightening up? Can you watch extended amounts of the footage without tears coming to your eyes? Can you watch footage of each tower collapsing without remembering that frozen moment when you were watching it happen live and cried out in horror?

Reading thru to the end of a thread like this involves wading through quite a pile of dross. But this time there was a nugget buried in there, courtesy of prize fool Ian R. Thorpe.

"THAT is the problem. As long as youtake terrorists seriously they will always win. Mock them, ridicule them and don't miss a step in your daily march through life."

Can there possibly be a better textbook-class statement of denial? As a summation of that "the only way to win is to not fight" school of losing, it stands without peer.

Perhaps we could have a few practical pointers on how a 9/11 victim can continue his daily march through life. Or how anyone who has had his head chopped off can cope with the little challenges of day-to-day life. Or how those who would fall eight miles into the North Atlantic if certain Moslem murders manage to get their acts together might whistle a cheeful tune as they no longer go off to work.

Ian Thorpe, you are suffering from serious self-delusion if you think the American people can or will adopt the utilitarian trope that the Left is currently pushing.

And Ann, I will grant you your values and surely your description of the ABC docudrama as shabby is a value judgement...will you grant me mine if I disagree? Rather you say my and others commentary "proves your point". I object counselor! It does no such thing.

Yep. But, start with Jimmy Carter. He could have whacked Iran and didn't. He could have backed up the Shah. Instead, he tossed the Shah, opened the door and let in the mullahs.

Then, move to G H W B. He could have owned Iraq and let Saddam stay.

Of course, Clinton, Albright and Berger did diddly.

And, of course, GWB was prepared to glissade through his first term, until ... 9/11.

You want to play the blame game, then spread it around, everywhere it's deserved. You don't want to play the blame game, fine. Just don't pretend that you only want to avoid the blame game when it comes to Bill Clinton.

"Most Americans take terrorism seriously" THAT is the problem. As long as you take terrorists seriously they will always win. Mock them, ridicule them and don't miss a step in your daily march through life."

This is how we spent the 90's, with our heads in the sand. WTC '93, Khobar Towers, the USS Cole- all were downplayed while Richard Jewell and the Unabomber were held up as the most compelling threats to American life. Terrorists aren't spoiled children seeking Daddy's attention. They are bullies looking to have their behavior accommodated and excused.

Simply remembering 9/11 is now a political act. Labeling it a terrorist act is political. Interpreting as an act of war rather than mere crime is a political act. Referring to 9/11 as a "tragedy" rather than an atrocity is a political act. Many on the left prefer to interpret 9/11 as an act of nature and Katrina as an act of government.

These are all political acts, so good luck with sealing off 9/11 and casting it in bronze and making it holy. The dead of 9/11 are victims, and you cannot recall them or their deaths without recalling their killers.

Elizabeth said... If the ABC "docudrama," whatever that fuzzy term means, presents fictional situations that clearly are intended to tar political enemies, then no one's under any obligation to just watch it and put politics aside.

I agree with Liz. I like my history or even historical fiction straight up without bogus scenes. I would have preferred an accurate portrayal of the run up to 911, lots of blame to go around on all sides.

That having been said, I have issues with liberals who rail at this docudrama giving a twisted view of Clinton's actions in 1 or 2 scenes when they canonized Michael Moore for his complete fabrications in his documentary F 911.

I also don't put much credence in Sandy Berger's pleas that they got the facts wrong after he pled to stealing and shredding TS documents from the National Archives to keep them from the 911 Commission. Me thinks he doth protest too much.

... because you don't have any, because your claims of working in advertising are as fictional as the rest of your act. :)

Indeed, it is fortunate for you that you *don't* really work in advertising, because recommending that your clients not buy time on a show that you yourself think would appeal to a large chunk of the population, just because you don't like their politics, would leave you open for legal action.

It appears that most commenters are going to spend 9/11's anniversary seeking to blame.

Sounds a lot like the Katrina anniversary.

Jeff's comment is right on the money. It's amazing how 9/11 is treated by some as a force of nature, an event which simply happened, while Katrina is treated as an act of man. It's a complete inversion.

On the broader question of politics, while there is something to be said for quiet reflection on occasions like anniversaries, I'm generally against the position that certain issues ought to be outside politics, or be kept depoliticized.

Politics is how things are decided in a democracy. It's often messy and ugly, but the alternatives are worse.

hdhouse said...ok chuckleheads...if this is a global war on terror then [...]

4. ohhhh and in case you don't get it, the only terrorist attack in the US in the last 6 years was under Bush's watch...and you can't blame that on clinton...Bush was in charge....or or do you have an alternative theory, like "well he wasn't really president for very long?"..something like that? Well tell me, what day did bush take over as president officially...

For someone who tosses the term "chuckleheads" around, hdhouse is remarkably ignorant (though perhaps the two traits do go together naturally). Even though he obviously chose the "in the last 6 years" specifically to include only the Bush administration in its range, hoping to make it a truism, he's mis-timed it -- since he obviously doesn't know when Bush took office -- as the Cole bombing occurred less than six years ago, in October 2000, when Clinton was president.

And what was Clinton's defense secretary's response to this attack which killed 17 American servicemen? That it was "insufficiently provocative" to warrant any response. So Al Qaeda simply stepped up the provocativeness sweepstakes with 9/11.

Yes, Clinton did little about bin Laden following four separate terrorists attacks, but I don't seem to remember the GOP being terribly interested in the gathering threat of al Qaeda in 1998. Do you? Nor do I recall a groundswell of opinion from middle America, the press, academia or anywhere else urging us to quit pretending that history had ended. I didn't see Republicans or Democrats doing much of anything about terrorism when Bush took office either....

Did Clinton make the decision re: Bin Ladin to be a law enforcement issue? yes. Was that wrong? Yes. Was he handed Bin Ladin on a "silver platter"? No. You legal eagles should know that he had no authority to bring him here for trial. NONE.

Also there is that infamous footage of the 6-6 white clothed figure. Why didn't we just cruise missle him out? Are you forgetting that it was a 2 hour cruise missle shot? Are you forgetting that his guests were a bunch of Saudis who, by abyssmal oil policies by EVERY president, we could not afford to piss off?

Why is there such selective memory?

9/11 was a tragedy beyond the pale. It was horrific. If you saw it LIVE from a few blocks away, lost friends (over a dozen of mine), nearly lost a daughter who just happend to exit the TC at 830 to meet me for breakfast, could see the people jumping...for christsakes, jumping from 1000 feet hoping to hit an awning to break the fall - well the blame game simply sucks.

What ABC did and is doing stinks. It is no tribute. Untruth is no tribute to anyone or to any memory...its like focusing on a Nazi death camp orchestra and noting how well they played under the circumstances.

but we also have to face it that BOTH parties have politicized this event to the point of distortion.

And in case you haven't noticed we are ramping up from 9/11 to a war on Iran and that will be another beaut of an endeavor and it will be politicized to the nth and again we will all be the worse for it.

Doyle: Isn't the preview distribution to loonies like Hewitt and Patterico, but not Bill Clinton, a bit suspicious?

"Loonies"?

You oughta get your facts straight, as Patterico did not get a preview copy and has not seen the docudrama. You got that wrong because you get all your information from sites like ThinkProgress and FireDogLake.

As for the 5 year anniversary of 9/11, I did pick up the DVD United 93 and watched it last night. Excellent movie, and which would only be political to the scummy people trying to lie about 9/11.

And, now that we're 5 years on, I feel most angry with the fact that Muslims still barely protest atrocities done in the name of Islam. In the aftermath of 9/11 I had subscribed to the Bush/Blair view that Islam is a "religion of peace" that's been "hijacked" by a "few bad apples." My opinion of Islam has fallen considerably in the years since.

hdhouse: You get YOUR timelines straight. The 9/11 plan was well underway BEFORE THE COLE, not after. And who should we have bombed off the face of the earth in response? Yemen?

One reason I wanna see Path to 9/11 is because it covers John O'Neill.

After the USS Cole was hit, O'Neill was attacked by the US Amabassador to Yemen for trying to do a proper investigation with a proper number of agents. According to the book The Cell, the ambassador declared O'Neill persona non grata in Yemen and didn't want the attack on the Cole to be taken too seriously.

It's amazing how many people have appointed themselves defenders of the legacies of Clinton, Albright, and Berger.

Are those people really worth your efforts? Albright in particular makes me ill. (This was a woman, after all, who had UN peacekeepers pulled OUT OF Rwanda right before 800,000 people were murdered in a genocide.)

I can't judge the ABC show until I actually see it. There have to be dramatic licenses when you condense years of events into 5 hours, however there are tolerable licenses and intolerable ones, depending upon the intent and effect. I'll judge when I see the film.

It's just funny how people get whipped up into a frenzy. And these, the same people who embraced the lies of Joe Wilson as well as the most deceitful propaghanda film in American history by Michael Moore.

A lot of what they're mad about is that a network is not staying "on message" - that is, not spending 100% of their time painting Bush as the most evil man to ever live. That is the one and only thing the hard left stands for anymore. Hate Bush all the time; nothing else matters. If the media stays on THAT message, these Democrats will tolerate virtually anything, including propagnada films like F9/11 that are now widely shown amongst America's enemies.....

From what I've heard, Path to 9/11 is hard on the Bush administration as well. Yet Republicans are not trying to censor the film. And they're not embracing the film just because it has a critical eye towards the 8 years of Clinton. Part of the reason people are looking forward to it and hoping it's good is because some of us want the country's eyes to stay on the ball - fighting the enemy. And that is another reason Democrats want to stop it.

Jeff:"Simply remembering 9/11 is now a political act. Labeling it a terrorist act is political. Interpreting as an act of war rather than mere crime is a political act. Referring to 9/11 as a "tragedy" rather than an atrocity is a political act."

Agreed. With typical liberal equivalence, they like to suggest that both sides are playing the blame game, but in reality, it is anything but; as an earlier commenter pointed out, most Americans realized after 9/11 that policy had to change. Bush changed it, and most of the "politicization" that has followed 9/11 has come from liberals who disapprove of that change. That is an odd turn of events, to be sure; this may be in bad taste, but I think that it's true: I continue to wonder why liberals -- who largely reside in the bullseye of principal targets for any future terrorist atrocity -- continue to refuse to process the reality that we are at war, and demand rigorous prosection thereof by the government, at very least out of a sense of self-preservation. If Al Queda detonates a nuclear weapon, where do these people think it will be detonated? Tulsa, Oklahoma? The best odds are on New York City or Los Angeles; if you live in one of those two cities and you vote Democrat, congratulations, you're the bravest - although not necessarily brightest - voters out there.

hdhouse said..."You get YOUR timelines straight. The 9/11 plan was well underway BEFORE THE COLE, not after."

Yes, that's correct - the 9/11 plan WAS well underway before the attack on the USS Cole. If the plan was largely developed before Bush took office, as you see to be vigorously claiming here - how does that help your argument that the Clinton Administration bears no responsibility for failing to stop 9/11 and that it was entirely a failure of the Bush Administration?

It's amazing how 9/11 is treated by some as a force of nature, an event which simply happened, while Katrina is treated as an act of man. It's a complete inversion.

You're half right, Brian. 9/11 is certainly not a force of nature, but a craven, deliberate act by men.

Katrina, the hurricane, is a force of nature. It also left New Orleans unflooded and able to recover. The failure of the canals and levees designed and built by people, specifically the Army Corps of Engineers, was not an unavoidable act of nature, but a failure of accountability and a causal chain of bad decisionmaking. Those are human acts, not tragedies of nature.

Ann, I agree I misinterpreted your post. However rereading it was no help, I still disagree!!

I sent you a personal e-mail when it appeared that the thread had been shut-down and comments deleted. As I stated, I believe debate is vital, "shabby" or not. I don't believe we necessarily honor the 9/11 victims by refusing to do so.

In my opinion, every anniversary of 9/11 has been shabby. I live in in NY, and was in Manhattan on that day. I watched the towers burn, and saw the second tower collapse with my own eyes. Afterwards, I walked south on Broadway to Ground Zero and saw something that told me all I needed to know about how many of my fellow New Yorkers and their fellow travelers would react to 9/11.

Walking through SOHO, I passed a sidewalk cafe that was packed with people sipping wine and eating appetizers. They were a typical lower Manhattan crowd: sleek, well-dressed, youngish. Many were tanned and all seemed unperturbed while they enjoyed their afternoon repast in the early September sunshine. They took little notice of the huge plume of smoke and debris that filled the sky just beyond the cafe.

Noah--you indicated that my premise about 9/11 being preventable was false, and cited as evidence the success of the Brits in stopping the airline thing. I would suggest that in the pre 9/11 world no one really gave much credence to the ability of 20 people to commander 4 aircraft and launch a coordinated attack--That hindsight thing of yours is very accurate! (yeah I know there was some snippet in the PDB but hardly actionable). Moreoever, the British success on the airliner thing was due to the POST 9/11 policies and procedures put into effect--and even those didnt help them with the subway bombings.

I will say again, that in a free society, bad people have a real advantage to perform evil acts--if we are to prevent those kinds of acts, we will become a whole lot less free. Perhaps one lesson of 9/11 is that 3000 deaths are, to some degree, the cost of a free society. I don't know.

Seems to me that Ann's point about using 9/11 as a platform for political pontification has been borne out---and I return to the point of my original post: until we as a nation determine precisely how many civil liberties we want to abridge to assure some degree of security, we havent learned much from 9/11.

Elizabeth said... The failure of the canals and levees designed and built by people, specifically the Army Corps of Engineers, was not an unavoidable act of nature, but a failure of accountability and a causal chain of bad decisionmaking.

I agree as long as you expand the list of culpable characters beyond the COE.

Priorities: COE, LA Congressional Delegation, State officials

Design: COE

Execution: COE, local flood control/levee districts, contractors

QA: COE

Storm day monitoring: COE, Locals districts

My points are two:

1. lots of folks had a hand in misspending or poor execution decisions. The COE had the lead in most, but locals (and the COE at fault was local) were at fault for most of the problems. It wasn't Washington HQ's COE that screwed the pooch here. One summer I worked for the COE, Sacramento District. We had our own levees. Your Levees were the responsibility of the New Orleans District, located in New Orleans. They didn't screw up on purpose.

2. There was no conspiracy to under design, or blow up levees. The boss of the COE for the Mississippi River Division (NOLA District is under them) is a Black Army General in Vicksburg. I doubt he blew up your levees.

I agree. Mr Thorpe did offer a jewel. I was originally shocked by his statement bit then realized it is a most eloquent expression of the Democratic party platform. This indeed is their "plan". It just hadn't been enunciated until now.

Thank you drill Sgt--You are one of the few people I have seen who have mentioned the one group of people who do bear one hell of a lot of responsibility: The local levee boards in the New Orleans District--before one pillories the Corps, they should thoroughly understand the role of local Levee boards in allocating the money the Corps receives for levee projects--Moreoever, the levees weren't breached; they were overtopped--That makes on hell of a lot of difference if you are a civil engineer.

LTG Val Heiberg, one of the former Commanders of the New Orleans district put a long and detailed post up on a somewhat more private listserv indicating the problems he had with many local ecological groups when the corps proposed a Netherlands style flood gate system. Of course, those kinds of issues remained largely hidden and not noteworthy, because had they been published, we might have found out just how the green communities concerns in the 1970s and 1980s precluded some of the engineering changes that could have prevented what happened.

Alas...As HL Mencken observed: for every complex problem, there is a solution: neat, simple, and wrong. I would prefer to start with a premise: that policy makers, democratic or republican, military or civilian, attempt to do things right; that they are concerned with things that might cost human lives; that they actually care about about the common good. If those presumptions are voided, then we really have no hope as a society.

i watched. and i saw. 2 people. later identified as a male an female but not recoverable for identification either to name or sex because the towers fell on them after they were dead.

i saw these two. they were way way up on the south tower. way up. they did the white towel thing for a long time. there were flames close by to my eye but obviously to them the flames were lapping at them. they had no escape. they had zero chance. no one on these floors survived.

I don't really need ABC to tell me what happened. The record is there and tells the story clearly. The Beirut bombing, the 1993 bombing of the WTC, the Khobar Towers, the Cole, the African Embassies, Mogadishu.

That list and the government's response should tell us all we need. Now we've have 5 years of brainwashing by the media and we're back in the complacency of those years, or maybe after seeing our HSA at work at our airports and our Supreme Court in the Hamdan case, most of us have decided that it's futile to expect Washington to do anything useful.

I saw the documentary on PBS about John O'Neill. That told me all I really needed to know about how the Washington establishment responded. Every one of these was an act of war, and we treated them as criminal cases.

Seven Machos said... Why is the left all atwitter about Afghanistan? No one can hold Afghanistan, ever.

7M, it's all about sheep. Scotland, upland Balkans, Afghanistan. poor soil, poor people, sheep herders, with nothing better to do than plink at cans and plot how to steal sheep and women. Sheep grow angry men who shoot straight, the Afghans happen to be in a class by themselves, but nobody can govern the country. Not Hindus, the great Khan, Brits, Russians, or the Afghans themselves.

If you really want to get angry, go over to YouTube and search for, well any combination of words involving 9/11 and the World Trade Center and enjoy the dozens and dozens of videos with delightful tags like "Just so you all know, 911 was an inside job. Flight 77 and 93 wreckage do not indicate a plane!Don't believe me? Try and find photgraphic evidence! It does not exist. The planes that hit the WTC were drones. Thermite and sulfer brought the buildings down. Now, we, the tax payer are making the military industrial complex rich via our incurred debt. Don't you just love capitalism? It's just too bad that people had to die in the World Trade Centres."

How many ignorant people will become infected by this poison? How long will the rest of us tolerate it? That it is legitimized by ostensibly intelligent people and the institutions that employ them never fails to disgust me.

We can all argue about who is to blame for this and that, meanwhile it seems that a larger and larger percentage of the population have decided to forget about the planes, piloted by Islamist murderers, that flew into those buildings on that crisp morning in front of their eyes, and instead decide that the real story involved thermite reactions and squibs and plane drones and Israeli art students rubbing their hands together with glee. I know that some people think that to refute conspiracy "theories" is to legitimize them, but someone needs to do something.

Everybody has opinions; establishing the world view as a matter of taste and doing so without criteria is an old practice of the left. One is warned not to go off message (stand by for 'Pravda'). You especially shabby people will "not even be seen from the faculty club." "Why I recall that exquisite send up of that prig Bush in Michael Moore's elegantly titled Fahrenheit 451 (subtle wasn't it. Those who don't read tried to burn the books. Well we read them, and anyway remember the answers). Now that was an anniversary!" "To begin to look beyond Bush when that had been so elegantly deflected by the presence of a woman DOJ member (Jamie Gorelick (the oral touch how appropriate!)) of the Clinton adminstration on the 9-11 Commission, that was so clever, why that's simply antifeminist, wouldn't you agree, darling?"

Not all conspiracies can be fought with facts, but the 9/11 one can. It is like a cancer that eats away at the public's trust in institutions. All institutions. Because the conspiracy claims that the government IS the enemy, the government is powerless to fight the conspiracy. But because unlike various assassination conspiracies for example, the the 9/11 event has physics and engineering events at its core and thus the best defenders of the government and ultimately society is academia. The problem is that academia doesn't want to help in the fight, because part of academia is anarchist and most of the rest are infected with some form of BDS. They can't see that ultimately they lose when truth loses.

Some people are no longer angry. They are well-meaning, but they are exhausted, and they are thinking, "Here we are, five years later, and we haven't been attacked, so maybe it's over. Can't it be over?"

Others are still angry.

If you are still angry, at whom is your anger directed?

I'll tell you at whom my anger is not directed: Politicians and Assorted Bureaucracy Dingbats. Compared to the object of my anger, those guys are comic relief.

No, I don't want to. I'd be much happier if everyone agreed with me that we need to exterminate every Muslim terrorist on the face of the Earth, along with everyone who has supported Islamic terrorism.

But since most of the Left disagrees with me on that, things get "politicized". They're too busy snivelling about how Saddam Hussein didn't support the *right* Islamic terrorists, so it doesn't count -- too busy queueing up to give money and support to quislings like Michael Moore and John Kerry.

Palladian argues, "I know that some people think that to refute conspiracy "theories" is to legitimize them, but someone needs to do something."

Do what? You can't legislate belief. It's significant that the 911 conspiracy theories have been disavowed on this thread even by commenters known for leftist polemic. The conspiracy theories seem more cultlike than political in nature, although of course there is some overlap with BDS.

There are always some who need to believe that they possess some hidden knowledge not shared by others, some special awareness that proves that they alone aren't dupes like the rest of the world. If it weren't 9/11, it would be the grassy knoll, the black helicopters, UFOs, or the elders of Zion.

The conspiracy theorists are fools, but there are other, far more deserving objects for anger this 9/11.

A nation of close on 300 million, founded by a bunch of revolutionaries, and dedicated to the proposition that all speech (no matter how nutty) is free, and all people (no mater how psychotic) are equal..

It's just business as usual for you, all the politics, the arguments, the good sense, the moonbattery. You guys generally get to about the right decision in the end. More often than most do, anyway.

It's just the process that's chaotic, and passes the understanding of most outside observers. The Islamofascists just don't have a clue how you operate, and therefore are destined to lose in the end.

Al Qaeda slew 3000 people, and brought down two iconic buildings. It plunged the US into war.

But it was supposed to change the US in a fundamental way. No chance.

If you'll allow a durned furriner to may a comment, that is the greatest tribute to the victims of 9/11.

Oh yes - it doesn't pay to cross you guys either. When riled, you can be far more dangerous than you look.

Phony? Can you watch footage of the towers burning without your chest tightening up? Can you watch extended amounts of the footage without tears coming to your eyes?

To address Freeman, I remember where I was, in Alexandria, VA. Watching the Towers burn on a big screen TV in our Office lobby, then walking part way around the building and looking out the windows to see smoke rising from the Pentagon. I knew nobody at the WTC, but plenty of friends were in the Pentagon on 9/11. Some died, most didn't.

I remember what I said to my co-workers, many of us Army veterans. (we were primarily an Army IT contractor).We're at war. I don't know who we are at war with yet, but we're at war

That's what people need to remember 5 years later. The cold war ran nearly 50 years. 45-91? This one won't be short or sacrifice free. There will be other attacks, some successful. We're going to get a WMD attack attempt sooner rather than later. Since I'm a likely target, I hope it fails. This not about Bush. He didn't start this fight. OBL and others like him started it. The next President (D or R) will need to continue the fight. By that I mean active defense of democracy, here and abroad, by multiple means. Surrender is not an option. Say it! Surrender is not an option. The enemy does not take prisoners, only slaves

I like your theory about sheep herding countries being ungovernable. Having raised sheep at the family farm, I would add that sheep are self-destructive and stupid. Anyone who spends time around sheep generally ends up bitter and angry. It may also be why the British Army did relatively well in Afghanistan, with so many Scots, Nepalese, and men from Dorsett and Shropshire.

Zoe:

Thanks for the kind words, and thanks to you for standing there with us in Afghanistan and Iraq. It would be perfectly acceptable for Australia to not be in those two campaigns, as you are deeply involved in this war in Indonesia, East Timor and several other places. I think one of the reasons Steve Irwin was so popular over here was that he so perfectly represented the Australian characher of seeing the right thing to do, (in his case, seperating large crocs and humans) and doing it, with no fuss, no complaints and a smile on his face.

generally speaking, those who invect with absolutes - totally branding either a political party, a vocation, a race, a religion, etc., often have a very weak argument to make...much like the screaming lawyer in the court room who was admonished by the judge to tone it down, to which he replied "how else can i make my point" to which the judge replied "try facts".

i was simply amazed that after a posting wherein a brief description of 2 people jumping to their deaths was greeted by comments amounting to "so what, shit happens". this is really a pity.

hdhouse said..."i was simply amazed that after a posting wherein a brief description of 2 people jumping to their deaths was greeted by comments amounting to "so what, shit happens". this is really a pity."

I join "mom"'s reply, but in addition, I don't think anyone has said anything remotely resembling that. Which specific comments are you characterizing as dismissing 9/11 as "shit happens"? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it mainly your side who is propounding the "shit happens" attitude about 9/11 by refusing to accept the need to abandon the failed "police action" handling of Al Queda? On 9/11, shit happened - BAD shit happened. But you want to carry on your merry way as if nothing had changed. Who has the shit happens attitude, and who has the shit happened attitude?

Just because posters dismiss you, and more specifically, your credibility in making some of the points you make (per "mom"'s reply) does not mean they are dismissing the tragedy.

1) We all agree the levees weren't blown up. There's no question about that.

2) Roger, no, the levees were most certainly not overtopped, with the exception of one place on one canal. That is incorrect. Wrong. Flat out not true. They breached, in five places.

One canal, the Orleans Canal, has a low point near a railroad crossing where overtopping might have occured after a parallel canal, the 17th Street canal, breached and sent water rushing toward the Orleans Canal.

They breached because of inferior design and some miscalculations. The walls are in an I shape, not a T shape, which is more sturdy, but more importantly, the walls were not sunk deeply enough to hold up to the water pressure within the canals. The walls were resting in a bed of silty soil. They should have been sunk to at least 10 feet deeper, where the soil becomes harder and more dense.

With enough water in the canal, rushing with a lot of power, the I-shaped walls started slipping outward, away from the canal, in the loose soil. Then the walls breached. The water exploded out from under the walls, where that soil was weak, and the walls then sank down into the hole.

The breaches are plain to see. There is no evidence of overtopping. The COE's own study concluded the water did not overtop, as has every other study done by outside groups of engineers and geologists.

During the contruction of these canals, the issue of the soil mixture came up, and one set of engineers challenged the math that concluded the soil and wall depth were safe, but a higher point in the chain of command did not agree to recalculating the design.

There are other flaws in the building that are probably due to the construction company.

The Industrial Canal, the one that is associated with the claims of being blown up, breached as well, and that was helped along by a large, unsecured barge that crashed through the point where it breached.

3) The levee boards are useless entities, but they have little to do with actual design and maintenance. Ours can't be dismantled fast enough for me.

1) We all agree the levees weren't blown up. There's no question about that.

We, as in the three of us sure. Please, I wasn't ever meaning to imply that you believe that particular conspiracy, but I know that the conspiracy is alive mostly on the left. Rational people need to fight it like the WTC ones.

Heck the Democratic Senate candidate from Missouri said recently:

state Auditor Claire McCaskill's comment to a group of city Democratic elected officials this week that "George Bush let people die on rooftops in New Orleans because they were poor and because they were black."

Drill Sgt., I can't claim to have my finger on the pulse of the left as a whole, but here, among those folks I do know, some of whom are waaaay over to the left, most others of whom are just your garden variety liberals and lefties, none of us buy, or bought, the levee explosion. But, without understanding the history of the 9th Ward, it's easy to dismiss those who do believe it as nutcases.

The same people grew up believing that the Industrial Canal was blown way back in 1927 when a year of flooding up north made its way down the Mississippi and brought about damage similar to what we saw last year here. Remember Randy Newman's wonderful song, "Louisiana 1927"? It didn't happen then, either, so far as the evidence suggests, but it wasn't as insane to think so. Poor people were definately abandoned during that time, and decisions were made to cut losses. So it's part of the lore, now, of that neighborhood, among people who don't have much reason to believe that anyone cares much about them to begin with.

Nor do I believe George Bush personally left folks on rooftops to drown. But he did take too long to notice what was happening, as did FEMA. That's easy enough to prove, using the record of their meetings, public statements, and media coverage at the time.

In our ceremony at my university marking the year's passage, we singled out for honor members of the U.S. Coast Guard; they were here, they were equipped, and they hit the ground running--well, that's a bad metaphor--before any other branch was able to respond. Next time you see a Coast Guard uniform, give the wearer a big thanks.

Mom said... But hdhouse, you are the one who switched to emotion when your logic and facts were challenged, without attempting to respond to the challenges or even acknowledging them.

I'll acknowledge challenges when they are worth the time. I haven't seen anything but silliness from a lot of them and its more boring than anything.

"Switch to emotion"...well mom, watching the towers from south broadway below Canal Street is lot different than from TV. I fear that a number of people who sort through it as a purely "clinton did it" knee jerk watched it from TV and as much as I travel, the grasp of the day and the event in a number of places around the country where the chances of the terrorists taking a wack at Blockbuster Video are fairly remote.

You KNOW it is true too. The impact lesses a great deal as you move away from NYC or DC. Conversely, the impact of Iraq in lives and horrid injuries is fairly spread out so that is a hot botton in comparison - geographically - where the WTC is or was some building where a lot of NY rich people went to work.

Mom, I care little if my politics offend. I care a great deal when the event becomes a trivial pursuit to score a point. I was 1/4 mile from the building base (perhaps less) when the 2 jumped. I will not forget that in a thousand lifetimes. Nor should you.

hdhouse, you know absolutely nothing about the personal impact that day had on me and my family. If you knew just how far off base you are in presuming to lecture me on forgetting any of the losses that took place that day, I suspect that even you would have the grace to be ashamed of yourself.

Nothing you said addresses in any way the foolishness, absence of logic, and ignorance of facts that you have demonstrated here. Being an eyewitness to a terrible event is certainly agonizing, but it does not clothe you in credibility or make up for your inability to think.

Heck, before I could be offended by your politics I'd first have to be convinced they were actually yours. You show every sign of being nothing more than a troll trying to get a rise out of pro-war folks.

I was 1/4 mile from the building base (perhaps less) when the 2 jumped. I will not forget that in a thousand lifetimes.